Do you get gifts for your alters?

Just thinking about this all of the sudden.

I think last year V2 did sorta think about gifts for at least some of us. I know she got some toys & stuff for some of the littles, but I can't remember much more. This year tho, its kinda different.

Like for one thing, money's really tight & we can't go spending too much on anything or whatever. For another thing, we really wanna try to like, cut back on the amount of "Stuff" we have cos we have too much of it. And like, as much as we wanna see the littles happy, they don't really play with the stuff they got? So it doesn't make sense getting them more stuff.

They all have their own stuffies, and there's extra stuffies around the house (or maybe they're claimed & we just don't know it yet lol). There's legos here they can play with, lotsa art supplies etc, so really they don't need anything more. Melissa did ask for a Frozen DVD, so we passed that request on to our sister cos she wanted to get us something. If it doesn't turn up next week then we'll order it ourselves afterwards.

And the bigs... like V1 & V2 are happy with body mods. But we're running outta places to pierce lol. And we're still healing from like the last round of piercings V2 got us, so we don't need more, can't afford more. Mike got himself a subscription to NHL Live (and bot himself a t-shirt & hat) so he doesn't need anything. Arin's deep in the void so she's not even around. Rebecca likes fancy tea but we already got tea here. I don't need anything... well, I got a buncha cat toys & stuff for the kitties, & maybe I'll pick out one for me lmao.

So I'm wondering about other systems? Does anyone else do like gifts for their alters? Or have a SO who gets gifts for everyone?

Viola

p.s. we are having a Littles' Day on Saturday - there'll be like cartoons all day long, snacks, favourite foods, probably legos, maybe colouring & drawing, etc. Instead of opening gifts & stuff, its more about having a day to do whatever they want & have fun. Two more sleeps away!

If we did individual gifts, we'd be in the poorhouse.

We used to get a few gifts that were each for a specific group of system members, or for interests that we knew we had in common. At this point in our life we're more interested in having time to ourselves to relax, not unlike your Littles' Day.

Hope you all enjoy the day.

MDs

We also have limited means. Last year we got one of us a book, it seemed important to acknowledge that their views and interests matter.
This year we got a Lego set for us all to build together.
I try really hard to foster connections among us by minimizing personalized things to what feels necessary.

Littles' Day sounds amazing! It isn't always about having more stuff, but indeed to actually play with them. Maybe even play together.

We try, too, to integrate "us" in the daily life. Cooking recipes that remind some of their home country. Letting Theia pick up leaves that we dry properly so she can glue them in her notebook. Got soaps in scents some of us like. Listening to podcasts related to Ulysses' and Lust's interests (they are philosophy geeks).

If we really want to have specific gifts for one or the other, we go for the consumables: snacks, food, candles, soaps... Throwing in an extra buck when we go to the hairdresser's to get a head massage... Most of us get what they need/want from the Innerworld, and we try to take turns picking up the "special" stuff we get ourselves so that everybody can have a thing.

But for us, it's really more of an everyday kinda thing. Maybe we could organize some home-made coupons for stuff though, that we can use during the rest of the year to have access to some special things (such as: "Can pick a restaurant for dinner, max. spending XX€" and similar things). It would be more festive to have things to un-wrap. But, most of us don't celebrate X-mas so we're probably going to just have some nice us-time, nice dinner, movie, no gift appart from the warmth of being together - and that's the best gift of all.

--Zami-- and -David- and ~ Theia ~

I ran out of money getting my family Christmas gifts but I was going to do this and I still might when I get paid again. I have to get a superman, a robot, a princess, a seprpent, bumblebee transformer, some spaghetti Os, veggie straws and some sour gum.

We're going to, but it's easier because not all of them come out, and if they do, they're not that active we'd actually spend money for them.. I mean parts like Rami and Anastasia, they're adults, adults can go without and they're mostly just inside. Anastasia came out like once this year for couple of minutes, I don't think that counts.

Ferro is a half time teen because he can be an adult or a teen, but he's not out either, so he doesn't need anything. Sami hates x-mas, so the plan was to get everyone something except for him and he can have something some other time, when something comes up. He is serious when he says no x-mas presents, he won't be sad to be without when others get stuff, but he will be angry if we don't respect that. It just happened to be that the singer he likes and has been on break for two years or something is gonna have a come back gig next summer. He'll have a ticket there and it has nothing to do with x-mas.. except that the tickets were released now.. There's probably a reason why just before x-mas. My goddaughter managed to get them (2x), and I'll buy one of them from her and we'll go together. And with Sami (and probably Lucas too), but my goddaughter doesn't have to know about it. Officially that's summer gift for Sami because he doesn't spend x-mas.

Lucas can decide whether he want basketball we can afford, or go without. He'd want fancy one, like official one with a brand name, but we won't spend that much on the ball that's not for official plays anyways. But it can be his x-mas present is simply that we'll go to church. It depends if he's around or not. And can have some candles at home etc. He can decorate how he wants to. We don't have any x-mas decorations because most of us don't like them, but candles are nice and wintery, not too triggery for Sami. Plus he's gonna understand it's important to Lucas. What Lucas would REALLY want is golden cross necklace, but they're wayyyyyyyy too expensive and he knows it. With that he can also decide if he chooses to be without or have silver one. Gold is super expensive right now. But for Lucas x-mas is not gift holiday, it's religious thing. That's why his stuff doesn't trigger Sami that badly, because it's about angels and love for other people, not about Santa Claus and elves, because Sami HATES them aggressively. Anyway, his present is kind of still not decided, because he needs to think what we can afford and if that's same thing to him at all or not.

Jules will have art supplies.

Littles are gonna have a book. There's new just released book from the series Leon likes, and they're pretty funny for adults too. I think we have new little (a girl) around too, but she hides behind Leon and kind of comes thru him or something else sneaky and I haven't talked to her yet. She can hide if she feels that's safe like that at first. She likes stuffed animals, we have actually pretty many, when I found all we have from walk-in-closet yesterday for her. She likes to sit on the bed and watch kids shows from laptop under the blanket with lots of toys around, everything we can find. She likes it like that, I think she's been happy. It was second time she came out. (After last time Leon told to our T it was him hugging the big teddy bear tho, but I think it's a cover story.) Book will be for both of them, I don't think we need more stuffed animals, there's too much to hug them all for once, and I think that sounds like enough.

We don't celebrate Christmas, so I guess it doesn't come up in the same way. We buy ourselves things as we see them, but without going overboard. It kind of depends on how big the feeling is about it.

We recently set up a sand tray--that seems to meet an important need, and now we're always looking for little collectibles to buy.

We get treats for the littles when we've done something difficult or gotten a lot of chores done.

We bought a stuffy a couple of weeks ago when we were food shopping--we hadn't planned to, but someone really wanted it, so we thought about it while we got the food and then bought it. It's become one of our most important ones--has to come along on trips, has to be in the bed and usually in the front seat of the car when we go places. So I'm really glad we listened to the feeling and bought it. But we're fortunate to not have to worry about overspending.

fireheart wrote:We also have limited means.

To clarify, we're fortunate enough to have moderate means, but also the possibility of overspending because we have a whole lotta people.

MDs

MakersDozn wrote:To clarify, we're fortunate enough to have moderate means, but also the possibility of overspending because we have a whole lotta people.

MDs

Fair enough.

Sort of. I bought a teddy bear pendant. That was my Christmas present to myself. I wanted a Fitbit but I don't think I'd use it. I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year because I won't be doing any obligitary visits to family. Yesterday I went sentimental and felt down about that, then I remembered the reality - it was uncomfortable, forced and I didn't like it. The idea of visiting family is nice, the TV concept or in a healthy family but not visiting my family. So that's my biggest Christmas present this year - no more BS pretending that I had ok parents, no more uncomfortable visits pretending to their new partners that they were parents, no more head f convos with my dad or snakey dinners with the mother. That's the best Christmas present.